Friday, December 31, 2010

40 Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti "Butt-House Blondes"Side B kicks off with some balls trippin' shit, with the intro sounding almost as abrasive as MBV's "Only Shallow" before leading to a verse section that crosses Radiohead's The Bends LP with Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" (keeping with the AM Gold flavor)...

39 Janelle Monae “Cold War”Seems like it's much longer than only 3:23, with so many hooks and ideas packed inside it's almost ready to burst, (possibly) matching up with the (possible) paranoia suggested by its lyrics (which might possibly be what this song is about but haven't really analyzed it enough to know for sure). When her band opened for Of Montreal like 2 years ago, I recall being impressed by the Jimi Hendrix looking guitar dude who played a nasty solo with his teeth while holding the guitar behind his head all at once, which required some crazy head acrobatics in order for him to get his teeth to the back of his head.

38 Nachtmystium “No Funeral”It’s blackmetal for non-blackmetal fans, or more adventurous “outside of the box” metal listeners, or maybe for Rammstein fans who are more accustomed to darkness and church burning with a heavy injection of pop structure and techno beats.

37 Japandroids “Sex And Dying In High Society”Remember when b-sides meant something? Leave it to Japandroids to breathe new life into the double-sided 45. (Is it worth campaigning for a return to calling them 45's instead of 7-inches?) They're currently 3 for 3 with choosing outstanding covers that fit their noise perfectly. The only thing I knew about X prior to this cover was how they presented themselves in The Decline Of Western Civilization, so their cover choices are educational as well. Think about the kids.

36 Katy Perry “Teenage Dream”More guilty pleasures.. "Teenage Dream" is one of those that required a complete turnaround from "blah Katy Perry slutwave lol" to "holy fucking shit Single Of The Year?!" within the span of about 3 weeks back in September. Unsurprisingly, Katy Perry and her songwriting collaborator had a decent amount of help from Swedish uber-genius Max Martin when throwing this one together. After that point, a complete listen through the entire LP was considered, up until a month or two later when the abysmal follow-up single "Firework" flooded the airwaves.

35 Superchunk “Waiting For Something”Much like the relief of Dinosaur Jr's reforming 3 years ago, the most refreshing aspect of the new Superchunk album is that it sounds just as good as the old school indie-kids who screamed out "The Question Is How Fast" and "Slack Motherfucker," although it's definitely more of an extension of the sound on their last few records circa-Y2K (the more "mature" sounding stuff) as opposed to the snotty immature stuff. Awesome video too!! Kinda bummed that "My Gap Feels Weird" just barely missed out on this list, but def check it out anyway because it's AWESOME.

34 Jay Reatard “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle”I’d rather not Google whether or not this is true, and just keep it part of Jay Reatard’s mythic legend, but someone told me that after receiving his $100,000 advance from Matador, he paid off his parents house and his sister’s college education before spending all that was left on white lines. At the end of the statement that was his music, “Frances Farmer” could be considered his exclamation point, a final gift to the fans, tragically sealing closed an asskicking decade-plus of widely assorted punkrock. He wasn't trying to become a legend, but it happened anyway.

33 Earl Sweatshirt feat. Vince Staples “epaR”“Wolf with a t-rex cock / Less talk while I invest stock in wet rock.” Reason #563 why Odd Future needs to blow up in 2011: The return of the 2-word rhyming scheme. Let’s make it happen, people.

32 Happy Birthday “Subliminal Message”Just realized now that the lead singer from this band is also in Witch with J Mascis. Happy Birthday is also on Sub Pop. The grunge connections are there, but not as many as what any reviewers might suggest. With different production, this might have been an outstanding grunge album, with “Subliminal Message” potentially as some kind of sugary Smashing Pumpkins homage. But instead it's more fuzzy-guitar-based indie-pop.

31 Gucci Mane “Lemonade”Holy fuck, the chorus of this was stolen from an album track from The Turtles. That's some fuckin swag right there. There's a new king of mushimouthness. Treat your mixtapes like albums. Treat your albums like mixtapes. Blackanyellow blackanyellow blackanyellow blackanyellow. Fuck.

Can't ring in the New Year without throwing up a few more pages of this shit.. Who's ready for some fuckin JAMZ?

50 Liars “Scarecrows On A Killer Slant”Liars are the only modern band I can think of who reference both Can and The Jesus Lizard on nearly every release, any yet every album is so different. They're also like the David Lynch of rock, in that their songs are often the types that would probably be playing at some crazy warped concert in someone’s dream. How can you tell if you're dreaming or not? Are you dreaming right now? Wake the fuck up and turn this shit up LOUD.

48 California Swag District “Teach Me How To Dougie”’06 had Chicken Noodle Soup. ’07 had Soulja Boy. ’09 was all about jerkin. But ’10 was The Year Of Dougie. And I personally know zero people who can accurately perform any of these dances. That’s how white I am, people. P.S. Did you know the drums in this song are fucking ridiculous? P.P.S. Here's one of those rare jams with something to look forward to in both the dirty AND clean versions.. Dirty starts out with "You know why? Cuz all the bitches love me," while the Clean (posted below) has "errbody love me err errbody love me" in the chorus. It's WIN/WIN with Dougie.

47 Vampire Weekend “Giving Up The Gun”White people lol. Yo, these dudes got REAL fuckin paid this year. Has anyone else been in more car commercials than VW? Fuck, just read those initials! It’s almost as if they knew.... More hot drums, btw.

46 Of Montreal feat. Solange Knowles “Sex Karma”Some truth regarding Of Montreal: #1 Kevin Barnes has now developed his knack of combining super-white with super-groovy to the point where inserting occasional “street terms” hasn’t yet become totally embarrassing, although the gratuitous use of “playa” in “Sex Karma” is really pushing it.#2 “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal” is without question one of the 10 most overrated songs of the past decade. Sorry kids; we only speak truth here.#3 Their 2005 LP The Sunlandic Twins has remained their unheralded masterpiece which has yet to be topped in terms of dancable, syrupy, mellodramatic radiance, although an album full of “Sex Karma’s” would get the job done nicely. It’s probably their best song since “Voltaic Crusher/Undrum To Muted Da.”

45 Drake “Find Your Love”“Find Your Love” is all about its subtleties, which have far more to do with Kanye than Drake, such as that keyboard ring after the 2nd chorus, sounding oddly nostalgic for late-80’s pop. Is it Janet Jackson or INXS or something? Fuck, it sounds so good that it hardly matters where it was stolen from.

44 Weezer “Getting Up And Leaving”I’d have to guess this is probably the first time since at least 2002 that a single Weezer track appeared in the top 100, let alone three tracks, all of which were (unsurprisingly) recorded between 1995 and 1998.

Throughout the early 2000’s, the most coveted of Weezer’s unreleased “holy grail” of 90’s demos was “Lullaby For Wayne,” finally uncovered after years of patience in the form of a live video on their 2002 DVD, and then later in studio form on 2004’s Deluxe Edition of "The Blue Album," which was met to enormous fanfare from hardcore fans. (Personally, I think it’s one of their 10 best songs.) Rivers Cuomo wisely decided to carefully plan the unveiling of the remaining demos with various leaks on the "Alone" compilations. However, one last key track remained. Originally planned as a b-side on the never released "Pink Triangle" single, the long fabled "Getting Up And Leaving" finally saw release in November 2010, and definitely lives up to its legendary status, completing a trilogy of sorts along with "Devotion" and "Waiting On You," as probably the most Pet Sounds-influenced stuff Weezer would ever unleash.

43 Robyn “Don’t Fucking Tell Me What To Do”Poor Robyn. When she’s not tortured by her love interest, she’s getting fucked over by her managers and fans pushing her around, or “killing” her, as it were. I understand; my job sucks too. I might feel more empathy if the beat of this song wasn’t so distractingly hot, or if it weren’t so fun to sing along with “my penis is killin’ me.”

42 Earl Sweatshirt feat. Ace Creator “Couch”“I got you niggas nervous like virgins flirtin’ with uncle Mervin.” It’s been years since the last time we heard Dawson’s Creek, Twilight, Kelly Clarkson and Miley Cyrus all namedropped in the same song. Where tha white women at?

41 (tie) Pill "Ho Out" & Pill "Action"DJ Drama & Pill wisely re-released this summer's outstanding mixtape 1140: The Overdose without the excessive and annoyingly loud DJ tags. The Youtube files below are unfortunately from the scarred 1st version. Word on the street is that Pill has been "taking his time" with the debut full-length, a very good reason why he did not blow the fuck up in 2010. The streets are ready for some real fire spittin' shit. As long as he keeps up with hooks like these, he’s set to become the next Ludacris or Big Boi. Pretty sure he's already signed to Warner Brothers, so yeah... Get fuckin' ready...Ho Out:

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Once again we find ourselves trapped... The list has been started. There's no turning back until it's finished. And it would never have started had it not been for the blizzard. BLAME THE BLIZZ.

60. Japandroids “Shame”In these parts, the idea of the great JPNDRDS covering PJ Harvey can generate some serious chubbs action.* Luckily, they killed it, and the chubbs were justified.

[Note: This may require some explanation. When popular music-crit news pages hear of certain artists releasing covers of other well-known artists, we the readers get the opportunity to witness a phenomenon known as “the chubbs,” which results in a given “news” section immediately crowning it with top story priority. For example, Jann Wenner got “the chubbs” when he heard that Alanis Morrisette covered Fergie. Even though really nobody cared about this at all, it became top news at RS.Com. Wenner’s chubbs turned into full sex-splosion when he heard about Green Day covering John Lennon. “Chubbs” has far more to do with idea of two artists merging than it does with the way the cover actually sounds. Like My Bloody Valentine covering Wire... That’s some fuckin’ chubbs action right there.]

59 Merchandise “I Get Lost”This album just came out not even two months ago, and there’s already a huge disclaimer at their label's website under the album cover stating “SOLD OUT” in huge capital letters!? I'm not kidding here, I was all damn good and ready to make a $9 purchase with actual money to have this unit shipped to my doorstep so that I could own a physical copy and won’t have to feel like I’m stealing from an asskicking new rock band. But nope; "SOLD OUT." This is what it's come to. This is why illegal downloads exist. The good shit is not sold at Best Buy. However, the good shit is usually downloadable from blogs such as icoulddietomorrow.. And seeing as how there is no internet web stream for "I Get Lost," we might as well post this here:http://icoulddietomorrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-katorga-works-releases-merchandise.htmlThank me later.

58 No Age “Fever Dreaming”It’s 100% No Age, but it’s also 50% Ramones, 63% “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter,” 26% The Fall, and 19% Nuggets boxed set, which adds up to 158%, which is 58% more than the average song. I’m not sure what this means. Read Pitchfork’s review instead. It's equally nonsense, but they get paid and we don’t.

57 Wolf Parade “What Did My Lover Say (It Always Had To Go This Way)”There’s a few Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown tracks that you can totally tell would sound that much better performed by Wolf Parade, for example when they took the Sunset track “I'll Believe In Anything,” already awesome to begin with, and then Wolf Parade rocked that shit the fuck out and turned it into one of the greatest songs of the past ten years. This is what I’ll miss most in the wake of their recently announced “indefinite hiatus.” I somehow can’t imagine “What Did My Lover Say” being improved as a Sunset Rubdown track. With all due respect to their side projects, they’re best within Wolf Parade and simply greater than the sum of their parts.

56 Pet Milk “Cherry Outline”I really know absolutely nothing about this band whatsoever, other than their 4-song demo EP is super rad. That’s literally it. I’m assuming they’re unsigned. No webstream either, but this song does have a video...http://vimeo.com/16384090

55 Hooray For Earth “Surrounded By Your Friends”Hooray For Earth toured this year with Surfer Blood, which is really the only reason they're being compared here. When Surfer Blood was discussed back at #84, it was noted that their music suffers from wussy-production, whereas Hooray For Earth, with their spacey/dreamy synths, received a correct balance of wuss/rock ratio, one that serves their music adaquately. “Surrounded By Your Friends” is their best song yet, and there's a good vibe going around that there's more where that came from. New LP in 2011 hopefully...

54 Stars “I Died So I Could Haunt You”Their most recent album highlight includes the drums from The Cure’s “Close To Me,” which also made a recent appearance on the No Age album. Along with the Hooray For Earth track at #55, "I Died So I Could Haunt You" is surely among the loveliest synthpop tracks of 2010.

53 Big Boi feat. Yelawolf “You Ain’t No DJ”Big Boi was clearly not choosing his guest-vocalists based on how "cool" they look. "Bewildered" might be an adequate term to describe a first viewing of the videos from Chico Dusty and realizing the extreme lack of "cool" exuded by the likes of Vonnegut and Yelawolf. In the case of "You Ain't No DJ," the beat was luckily so blazing hot (courtesy of none ofter than that genius mofo Andre 3000 himself!) that it pretty much made 0% of difference. Also of note: I thought the skit at the end of this one might have been the "David Blaine" one, but sadly that was from a different song. Sursly tho.. David Blaine: Skit of the year.

52 Robyn “Dancing On My Own”No one is really sure if she’s actually the heartbroken introvert she so convincingly plays on her albums, but Robyn’s brilliant Letterman performance of this song touched our hearts like almost no other TV performance this year. A few weeks later, someone decided to try and recreate this magic on the VMA’s, a program which hasn’t made a single correct decision in 6 or 7 years, so of course it was a bit frustrating to witness her 15 seconds of lipsynching and dancing like a crazy girl... as they segwayed into more Kia and Taco Bell commercials. Thanks for nothing, MTV. Stick to what you’re good at, a.k.a. sucking Snooki’s dick.

51 The Arcade Fire “Rococo”“Using great big words that they don’t understand.” The American Suburbs is not exactly uncharted lyrical or musical territory, which may have come to an alltime peak somewhere between The Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane” single. In this case, Arcade Fire have invoked musical elements from all three of these, most noteably the “chaotic outro” motif, signified in “Rococo” with some lovely, ferocious guitar feedback.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

70 Broken Social Scene “World Sick”Yet another (somewhat) straight-up rock band turns into The Arcade Fire. It could have been worse; at least this one song kicked ass, although we're still unsure why these guys needs 5 guitar players. Nice keyboard fills in this one.

69 (tie) Wolf Haley “Leather Head” & Tyler, The Creator “Splatter”Both of these are from OFWGKTA’s Radical “mixtape,” which was far more of an actual full length album than a mixtape, their only release so far with contributions from all 10 members and for all intents and purposes should be considered their 36 Chambers.

On “Leather Head,” Tyler’s alter-ego Wolf Haley proclaims “I’M THE MODERN DAY IAN CURTIS,” on top of a sample from fucking Liars 2007 self-titled?!?! This is the most balls-out brilliant anti-aesthetic hiphop since Paul’s Boutique. There’s nothing danceable or pop about this whatsoever. The punk-rock of rap has arrived. If Wolf Haley’s full-length is gonna sound like “Leather Head,” bring this shit the fuck on.

Tyler’s nightmare continues in “Splatter,” where dissonant, paranoid keyboard tones clash under some angry growling: “Fuck Tyler, ima change my name to Uncle Phil.” I’m assuming this is a Fresh Prince Of Bel Air reference. We’re waiting for raw hiphop’s 2011 comeback with some painful ass patience. Rap’s equivalent of “Endless Nameless” may be forthcoming.

68 Japandroids “Darkness On The Edge Of Gastown”No Singles acts as an examination of their songwriting tweaks, with “Darkness,” pulled from a 2008 EP, most directly pointing to the repeated fist-in-the-air punk rock call-and-response shit we now know as Japandroids’ calling card, with slightly more heartbreak than the living/in-love lyrics on Post-Nothing.

67 Merchandise “Worthless Apology”It’s been taking a while for this shoegaze-revival thing to amount to anything substantial, but Merchandise.... GOT DAMN. This is beyond almost anything else we’ve heard since the JAMC/MBV days. With regards to No Age, we have an unexpected winner of the “noise-pop artist of the year” title.

66 Kanye West feat. Pusha T “Runaway”Emo-rap lol. It took a minute to realize he's singing about himself.. Calling himself a douchebag & a jerkoff who never takes work off. Egomaniacs aren't typically objective in their self-reflection. You don't see Billy Corgan writing shit like this. P.S. Just confirmed: Kanye and Taylor have already been booked for the next 6 VMA’s so that they can perform songs that refer to their performances from the previous year. Sponsored by Coke. It’ll be great.

65 Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Bright Lit Blue Skies”More AM Gold.. This time of the 60’s flavor. This ultimately turned out to be a somewhat faithful cover of some obscure 60’s garage band.

64 Weezer “Trampoline”The most frustrating rock band of all time revealed another handful of lost classics this year, 2 of which were tracks 5 and 7 on November's contractual obligation release Death To False Metal, marketed as an “odds and sods” collection encompassing all of Weezer’s 18 years of existence, even though 8 of its 10 songs were nearly unlistenable demos from the sessions of Make Believe, The Red Album and Ratitude.

“Trampoline” and “Everyone” (which came in at #100 on this list) were recorded during the same 1998 sessions as the Pixies cover “Velouria,” with Mikey Welsh filling in for Matt Sharp on fuzzy overdrive bass, for what was supposed to become the follow-up to Pinkerton. Unfortunately, this album never happened, and with these 3 songs and some various unreleased Pinkerton outtakes, fans get to wonder what might have been had Rivers not gone batshit insane.

63 No Age “Shred And Transcend”Don’t fuck with the formula. Just don’t.

62 Pill “Hear Somebody Comin’”BOOZER. I was happy to hear that Andre 3000 is a big fan of Pill’s mixtapes. If that’s the case, Dre needs to release some new shit and get Pill to bust out some tasty guest verses so that he can finally blow the fuck up already. I said DO IT.

Monday, December 27, 2010

We do not care that the formatting for this thing looks like shit. If you want to read this in order then go to page 1 first. If people actually read this, we would care a little more.

Let's continue with more sick traxxx...

80 The Arcade Fire “Modern Man”Since reading Pitchfork’s review where they compared its unraveling nature to four double-albums from the 1980’s, it’s been easy to consider “The Suburbs” in this respect, with the first four songs comprising a very strong Side A. Suckers for odd time signatures (aka douchebag Steely Dan fans) will dig the extra notes in each measure. AM Gold got trendy.

79 The Vaselines “Sex With An X”It’s like they never left, evoking the best and sunniest 60’s bubblegum and immediately showing the new-school hipster whippersnappers (hipster-snappers?) how it’s done. Sun shines in the bedroom when they play; the raining always starts when they go away.

78 Washed Out “You And I”90% of the reason why this is here is because of the tasty “Lucky Star” sample.

77 Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Little Wig”Before Today gets held together by the “AM Gold On Acid” concept*, with approximately the same amount of subtle humor found in the amazing video for the b-side “A Mistaken Wedding,” which randomly seemed to just somehow appear on Youtube over the summer, seeming to suggest that its creators had no recollection of putting it together. "Little Wig" adds hints of lounge and 70's classic rock to the AM Gold/hallucinogens combination. Very tasty.

*Fully aware of the copious amounts of LAME that comes with the “[fill-in-the-blank] on acid” cliché, but I mean.. that’s exactly what it sounds like.

76 Deftones “Diamond Eyes”New sad statistic: 4 out of 5 rock reunions will be disappointing and depressingly shitty. In a year with new releases from Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden AND Alice In Chains (the most recent of which was STP’s 2001 LP), you’d figure there might be at least one good song amongst any of these, which was sadly untrue. The other proven statistic is that the bands who stick together fuck shit up together, and Deftones have yet to release an album without at least a handful of great songs. Chino may be coked up, but still delivers the goods, while the rhythm section still presents some of the darkest riffs and finest drumming out there. Please Deftones, for the good of rock, don’t ever split up. We need you more than ever.

75 Big Boi “Daddy Fat Sax”There’s one keyboard patch in this that sounds like A Tribe Called Quest, and most of the rest sounds like Outkast rapping over Three 6 Mafia beats. No complaints here.

74 Tyler The Creator feat. Earl Sweatshirt “Assmilk”Tyler and Earl seem to be the most winning combination within the Odd Future collective, and a collaborative duo worth getting excited about. “Assmilk” is their “trading eights” jam, with the two respective parts backed by viciously clashing keyboard hooks. Earl’s sounds like a warped 45 of “Strawberry Fields” compared to Tyler’s which is closer to Rammstein or an abrasive blackmetal intro.

73 Eric Copeland “Fun Dink Death”Balls Trippin’ Beach Party 1965.

72 Drake “Over”Drake should never be considered a serious artist, even though all major music publications seem to enjoy massaging this dude’s ballsack to the point of pre-cum. Nobody I know in real life (aka real people, outside of the music press) takes this guy seriously AT ALL, especially those who remember him from Degrassi The Next Generation. One somewhat accurate comparison I heard this year was Alanis Morrisette, who also gained notoriety as an occasional cast member on a Canadian kids show who then later got her balls massaged by the likes of MTV, Rolling Stone and Top 40 radio.

Although “Over” sounds like second-tier Lil Wayne, the chorus is strong enough to be considered among the year’s most memorable moments, even though it’s all mostly lulz... "What am I doin'? Oh yeah, that's right, I'm doin' me..." Right on.

71 Holy Ghost “Static On The Wire”Still waiting on a full-length from these guys, especially after 2006’s “Hold On” single (still holds up as one of the best of the 2000’s) and the Static On The Wire EP is showing some promise for a sick LP in the (hopefully near) future.

90 Kanye West feat. Rick Ross “Devil In A New Dress”“Satan satan satan.” Still getting used to this new “guitar solo” thing. It’s almost 2011 and we still haven’t heard anyone rapping over “Maggot Brain.” Let’s get on this shit.

89 Superchunk “Learned To Surf”The Get Up Kids also chose 2010 to release their first new shit in fucking forever. And while they might have an awesome LP lined up, we haven’t heard it yet, leaving Superchunk to anihilate their reforming associates. “I can’t hold my breath anymore. I stopped swimming and learned to surf.” Going from drowning to surfing seems to be an acceptable metaphor for immediately resurfacing after nine years as one of the best bands making rock music today.

88 Tyler The Creator feat. Domo Genesis & Hodgy Beats “Up”Can't believe it took 12 songs before getting to an Odd Future track, this one taken from the Radical mixtape, where the abrasive noise-rap of “Leather Head” segues into smooth r&b sampling “Up,” getting our vote for OMGWTFLOL moment of the year.. up until about halfway through the track, when you realize the 2 songs have a lot more in common than the surface would indicate.

87 LexiconDon “December Sunset”Who could forget this one?! Oh wait.. Okay, I hardly remember this one at all... I just turned it on. Sounds hot. On a completely unrelated note, how does My Chemical Romance honestly get no chicks as a result of their stardom? I mean, I’m introverted too, but they’re in fucking My Chemical Romance and can’t figure out how to use that to their advantage? This news saddens me. And there I was a few years earlier thinking these dudes were the new Poison. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fuck.

86 Spoon “Who Makes Your Money”Spoon’s thing is making precision sound effortless, as opposed to Phoenix for example, who puts their meticulous production in the forefront, ahead of the songwriting or performances. Yeah... Imagine that. Spoon also purposely places things that sound like mistakes into their songs, which are actually on purpose. So go figure that one out. Fuck.

85 (tie) MellowHype “Brain” & MellowHype “Right Here”The chorus of “Brain” gets stuck in mine like something fierce. And "Right Here" is one of those where you hear it and you're like "Got damn." All trippy n shit. Fuck.Brain:

Right Here:

84 Surfer Blood “Harmonix”Proven fact: Over the past few years, one of the most negatively influential records was The Shins’ 3rd album Wincing The Night Away which seems to be the entire basis by which Surfer Blood built their sound. The album has also influenced the sound of bands like Best Coast and a string of other recent acts who would ALL sound about 100x better with standard ROCK production instead of drowning out the vocals in reverb and turning up the estrogen levels to eleven. Also please stop comparing Surfer Blood to Japandroids, because they’re not even close to being sonically similar to each other. Yeah anyway, “Harmonix” includes lots of guitar harmonics (no, really!) which also sounded cool on Sonic Youth’s “Do You Believe In Rapture?” The rest of this album is also fine, but would be vastly improved with less wussy production.

82 Happy Birthday “Girls FM”“Too rich for my blood” as Reginald Vel Johnson used to say. “Girls FM” combines (what might be) glockenspeil, rock music’s most annoying musical instrument, with fuzz bass, which is possibly the most badass. I recently re-discovered The Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb” where Bill Wyman lays down some similar fuzzy bass technique*, adaquately cutting up the sugar with some white lines. Cut that shit up.

*My bad, “Under My Thumb” uses marimba, not glockenspiel. Same thing.

81 Caribou “Odessa”Good song, although I’m still trying to figure out how this ended up as Caribou’s “big hit” as this is not his best song, and isn’t even the best song on this album. I guess the kids love hot grooves.

Hot year for singles... Shitty year for albums.... Just like the last 5 years. What else is new?

100 Weezer "Everyone" There’s a shit-ton of throwbacks on this list, and starting out with a recently uncovered demo from 1998 may not be the best sign for what’s to come, but yeah, whatever. "Everyone" probably would have ended up as a throwaway b-side, but compared to Weezer in 2010, it sounds like fucking Abbey Road. A kickass outro bass lick (courtesy of Mikey Welsh) saves this one after a decently embarrassing middle section, almost equally as embarrassing as the meaningless lyrics (although reasonably no more embarrassing than those in “Butterfly”). Pretend that Weezer still sounds like this and pump it while driving around. Should be a blast.

99 N*E*R*D "Life As A Fish"The best song about evolution released in 2010, in the style of “Provider” from In Search Of. And if you haven’t heard the 2002 version of that album in a while, do yourself a huge favor and load it onto your iPod. It’s better than you remember it. “Life As A Fish” is the best N*E*R*D track released since then. (Tyler The Creator tweeted about it probably 7 times this year, so thanks to him for bringing it to our attention.)

98 Malachai “Snowflake”I unknowingly Shazam’d this song 3 times this year. That must count for something.

97 The Black Keys “Howlin’ For You”The “Danger Mouse” sound is officially stale as fuck. Guessing “Howlin’ For You” is the last case in which fleeting glipses of freshness will emit from this dude, although the "Rock And Roll Part 2" drums got old right around the time of "I Kissed A Girl" which was roughly 2.5 years ago at this point. P.S. The Black Keys somehow blew the fuck up with that whistling song appearing in like 15 TV commercials in 2010, so good for them I guess.

96 James Pants “I Live Inside An Egg”This dude lucked out on his last name. More 8-bit nes shit. We love good weird noises. Need more.

95 Fucked Up “Year Of The Ox”Here’s hoping Fucked Up never releases a compilation of their “Year Of The ___” series, as 12+ punk rock songs all of which are longer than 10 minutes might equate extreme yawns. As a single, “Ox” is one of the best of these so far, evoking a hardcore version of Stereolab or Primal Scream. Still trying to figure out why the 2 singers cover their heads in colored tape while they’re singing. At least, it’s something interesting to look at.

94 Caribou “Kaili”If this guy sang like the dude from Underworld, this might have been an “album of the year” contender. But unfortunately, he turned up the vox a little too much and barely missed out on the top 3. Caribou’s production is still tight as fuck though. We're banking on a return to “Melody Day” form on the next record, but Swim is still his best LP so far.

93 YG “Toot It And Boot It”YG, you have the ugliest tattoos I've ever seen in my entire life. There's no guilty pleasures list this year, but this would have been a fucking HUGE one. YG was discussed here back in September, regarding how nice it was to see that his Hot 100 debut was higher than Cee-Lo Green's "Fuck You" (a song that will NOT be appearing in this top 100, thanks). At one point, "Toot It And Boot It" was wrongly considered for this year's top 10, so there was no way it could have been left out altogether. Out of all the recent "jerk" anthems, this is the only one that seemed to evoke 70's Motown with that "whoa-ohhh-whooaa" section. Earl Sweatshirt would not be happy to see this here.

91 Lou Barlow + The Missingmen "Losercore"Just discovered approximately 30 seconds ago that "Losercore" was not written at any point within the last year or 2, but was actually originally from something called Sentridoh which makes perfect sense as to why it would emerge as one of the 100 best songs of 2010. I somehow keep finding myself discovering awesome rock songs that I assume are from new bands, that end up turning out to be from the 90's or early 00's, which happened with about half of the songs on Music From Scott Pilgrim.

what's it?

TASTE MY KIDS compiles recommendations for a happier and healthier existence, most often in the form of "best-of" lists, youtube posts, album or movie reviews, and various scribblings. We lived on Geocities starting in August 2000. In January 2009, times got tough and posts were on hiatus until a new host could be located. Geocities eventually died anyway, and now we live on blogspot. True story.